


The Book of Judith

by irisdouglasiana



Series: The gods will always smile on brave women [3]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 04:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17379206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisdouglasiana/pseuds/irisdouglasiana
Summary: “Let this be a lesson to you, daughter,” her father the king instructs Judith when she is nine years old. "When you discover corruption and rot, you must not hesitate. Tear it out by the root; let no trace remain. When you destroy your enemies, you must destroy them completely.”A name such as hers carries terrible power.





	The Book of Judith

**Author's Note:**

> CW: descriptions of torture and discussion of filicide consistent with the show.

_“Judith replied, ‘Listen to me, I intend to do something, the memory of which will be handed down to the children of our race from age to age…You must not ask what I intend to do; I shall not tell you until I have done it.’” – Book of Judith 8:32-34._

When she is nine years old, her father the king takes her to look at her uncle’s head on a spike in the courtyard. The downpour stopped less than an hour ago and she can see the water dripping from his curly dark hair and the big fat raindrops sliding down his pallid cheeks like tears. She did not witness the execution, but she heard the men say he was afraid and wept, and she sees now that he is weeping still.

“Let this be a lesson to you, daughter,” her father says, his massive hands weighing heavy on her shoulders. “This man, who I once called my brother-in-law—this man conspired against his lawful king, in defiance of God, and so he was punished for his wickedness.”

For her last birthday, her uncle had given her a little prayer book with flowers and birds circling the margins of the pages. She had traced her fingers around the edge of Mary's gilded halo and the perfect oval of her face until the paint started to fleck away. “Does not the Lord God teach us to be merciful, Sire?” she asks her father.

He scowls. “Stubborn child, you speak in such a manner to your king? Look here,” he says, grabbing her jaw and forcing her head up. “The Lord may choose to grant your uncle mercy in His kingdom. But I tell you this: when you discover corruption and rot, you must not hesitate. Even though it pains you, you cannot allow it to take hold. Tear it out by the root; let no trace remain, or it will return and ruin you. When you destroy your enemies, you must destroy them completely.”

* * *

Aethelwulf will not tell her the details of her father’s death; such things are not fit for a gentle lady to hear. Ecbert turns away from her when she asks. “A terrible thing, a terrible thing,” he mumbles, and will say no more. So she makes the captain who took the body down tell her. _Blood eagle_ , she learns, is the name the Northmen call it, splitting open the skin and muscle and cutting through the bone. Aelle was a proud man and fearless in battle, but it would have taken him a long time to die. She wonders whether he begged, in the end. If he had any regrets. In the nights that follow, she wakes from her nightmares still hearing the echo of his screams.

Everyone thinks her cold and heartless, but she weeps in the privacy of her rooms for her father, who she hated; for the snarling, angry man who gave her her name and her rage. Even now, when she looks in the mirror she sees nothing of her mother, a pale and frightened shadow. Her father’s eyes stare back at her instead. Aelle demanded total obedience of his wife and daughters, and yet he named her _Judith._ The Judith of the Bible walked through the enemy camp and into Holofernes’ bed. She took his own sword and cut his head off with two sharp blows and showed it to the people.

A name like that carries terrible power. Her father must have known what she would become.

Some years later, after Lagertha and the two defeated sons of Ragnar arrive at court seeking protection, she goes to Bjorn Ironside to ask him herself. The pagan gazes at her sullenly when she approaches.

“Perhaps you do not know this,” she says. “King Aelle was my father, and the grandfather of my son the king.”

That gets his attention. This close to him, she can see traces of Ragnar in his jaw, the shape of his shoulders, the way he carries himself. “I know you killed him. I want you to tell me how he died.”

Bjorn Ironside does not look away. “He died in pain,” he says. “I did it myself and all my brothers watched. He asked how much gold and silver would save his life, but there was no price we would accept, not for the endless grief he brought us, not for the hurt he caused our people. He wept and he prayed. He begged your god to protect him. Your god did not answer. He died all alone.”

* * *

In the blink of an eye, they are gone; all the men who molded her life. Athelstan—he returned to Kattegat with Ragnar Lothbrok without knowing she carried his child in her belly. Her father—she left him fuming in Northumbria, certain he would prevail against Ragnar’s vengeful sons. Ecbert—she rode off with Aethelwulf and her sons ahead of the great heathen army and never saw him again. Aethelwulf—he reached out to their boys, his breathing labored and his face swollen beyond recognition. _Sweet Judith, do not weep for me_. Everywhere she goes, death follows.    

The only thing she has left are her sons and herself. Everything else has changed. She goes to sit by herself in the room that had been Ecbert's study, where he kept his most precious books and sculptures from another age. Now all of those things are gone; the Northmen took them away or destroyed them, and she is the only one left to remember how it was before. It was in this room where she had first picked up a brush and painted the Scriptures. That, for her, was a kind of freedom; to take the blank page and transform it into something of her own, to take the words that had been thrown at her all her life and decide they would not break her. _You are a bad daughter_ , they said. _A bad wife. A bad mother. A bad woman. You are disobedient, sinful, unnatural, wicked. You will be damned for all eternity._ Fine, she is damned, what of it? She will do as she pleases.

What pleases her now is to see Alfred on the throne. Of course she knows he is not safe, not yet, not ever. He is young and the nobles think him weak, and Alfred himself does not truly understand the danger he is in. For all the education Ecbert had provided Alfred, he had nevertheless shielded him from that aspect of ruling. Alfred has not yet sent men he has known from childhood to the executioner’s block, he has not yet made their wives into widows and their children into orphans, he has not overseen the torture of suspected traitors. He is in many ways still a boy. But she will make him into a man, into the king he was always meant to be. He will be her final and greatest work.

* * *

She sits through the questioning of Cyneheard for hour after hour, listening to him lie and whimper and scream. She picks through the tools on the table and hands them to the guards herself. She does not flinch as they break his fingers and pull out his teeth. He is no innocent; he would see her Alfred murdered, and so she feels no trace of pity for the man. She takes notes of the names and places and dates herself, not trusting this work to a secretary. Many of the names she expected, but a few surprise her. “Your leader,” she repeats over and over. “ _Tell me the name of your leader_.”

He does, finally, in a voice gone hoarse from screaming, and for the first time in four hours Judith steps out of the room and immediately vomits. When she has composed herself, she goes back in and looks her prisoner in the eye. He gazes back at her dully. “Think very carefully about what you have told me, my Lord. Rest for a little while and then we shall record your formal confession. If you are unsparing and truthful, my son the king may be inclined to mercy.” _He might. I am not._

Cyneheard barely manages to nod. She straightens up and walks to the door, raising her skirts to avoid the blood on the floor, and then pauses. “You have two daughters of your own, yes? No doubt you have been thinking of suitable marriages for them soon. And you have a little boy as well, if I recall correctly—he must be four years old by now. You, sir, have no future, but they still might.” His head jerks up but he is silent. Perhaps he cannot speak. The blood still drips from the corner of his ruined mouth.

The girl in her would have shrunk away in horror from the sight of him. She would not have been able to do what was necessary. That girl is dead; Judith destroyed her long ago. She starved her and drowned her and smothered her with her bare hands. Now she feels nothing at all.

* * *

Judith turns the vial over in her hands. She had requested it from the apothecary as soon as word arrived that the great heathen army had landed on the shores of Northumbria, in case the worst should happen. The man had weighed out the white powder in front of her and tipped it into the container and sealed it with wax. “Will it be swift?” she had asked.

He nodded. “In a matter of minutes it will be over.”

“And the pain?” She had not quite been able to keep the quiver out of her voice.

The apothecary hesitated. “No poison is entirely painless, your Highness. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.”

“And this amount is sufficient for three doses,” she said as she held the vial up to the light.

“Oh yes, your Highness.”

The worst—or what, at the time, she had believed to be the worst—had not come to pass. But this—this is beyond what she could have imagined. Her hands are slippery with sweat around the glass vial, knuckles turning white. She is careful to not accidentally crush it. She thinks of Alfred lying senseless in his bed in the next room. Somewhere down the hall, she imagines Aethelred pacing about, angry and restless. As for Judith herself, she sits in the enemy camp in the tent of sleeping Holofernes. The sword is resting at his side.

The Devil comes to whisper in her ear. Not the undamaged one, but the ear that Ecbert and Aethelwulf ordered struck off. He folds himself into the layers of scar tissue and seeps under her skin. _You know what must be done_ , he says. _You have known for a long time, haven’t you?_

 _No, no_ , she tells him. _My own son. I cannot._

He chuckles. _I think you can. You never loved him much anyway. Aethelwulf’s child._

_You are wrong._

_And you are a bad liar._ His voice is soft and low. _The poison is already in your hand; I did not tell you to put it there. Will you lose everything you have worked for because of your soft woman’s heart? Will you lose Alfred because you were weak? What kind of a mother are you?_

She does not reply.

The Devil laughs and laughs. _And so you have your answer._

* * *

This is what it says in the Book of Judith, which is not yet complete: you are not an ordinary person. You cannot be an ordinary person if you want to survive. You must do terrible things; things you could not have imagined you were capable of. You must stain your immortal soul.

Now break up your own heart and grind it into a fine powder. Mix it with water and yolk, wet your brush, set the point against the blank page. Begin to paint.


End file.
